Advertising or Manipulation

Every company wants me to sign up. More and more websites are informing me that they use cookies.

Why do they want to do this?

The more data they can obtain from me, the more they know about me, the better they can tailor their marketing to make sure it is reaching the correct people. You could call this ‘targeted marketing’ and it has been repeated over and over again throughout my marketing degree. However, this use to be about finding groups of people and marketing towards them, now it is so individualised its beginning to make me think it’s gone beyond advertising. Jaron Lanier states that advertising is turning into behaviour modification and that companies are sending calculated stimulus in an attempt to modify our behaviour (this article breaks it down further).

Unfortunately, there is an even bigger issue.

Companies that I have actively engaged with that are doing this are toeing an ethical line but it is still a direct business to consumer relationship. The large companies forming data alliances for someone else’s benefit, THAT is an absolute breach of privacy. Companies often outsource their data services to a data management agency in exchange for free service. These agencies data mine and go on to sell it elsewhere by creating a behavioural profile of someone from all the different data information they have received (a great interview on data brokers).

Creating a profile of someone that you have had zero interaction with is entirely unethical. The largest data broker in America is Acxiom having on average 1500 pieces of information on over 200 million Americans. This has grown into a multibillion dollar industry with almost zero oversight or regulation, now that is scary.

Do you think you're being advertised to or manipulated?

How do you feel knowing companies you haven’t engaged with know so much about you?